[Leica] Is photography art?

[billcpearce at cox.net (Bill Pearce)]

In my experience, it is only amateur "Sunday Painters" that speak 
derogatorily of photographers whose work can be seen as artistic. I remember 
the day when dealers, curators and dilettantes spoke ill of photography, but 
the people that I know that are working full time as "real" artists don't 
feel that way at all. It may be that the old fools have died off.

-----Original Message----- 
From: George Lottermoser
Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2015 6:42 PM
To: lrzeitlin at aol.com ; Leica Users Group
Subject: Re: [Leica] Is photography art?

Of course blue chip artists like James Rosenquist, Jasper Johns, and 
hundreds of others fly in the face of many of your "claims" to a hierarchy 
of Fine Art. Not to mention the fact that Rembrandt, Durer and hundreds of 
other "Classical Masters" were print makers as well as painters and 
draftsmen; who earned their keep as portraitists to royalty; and 
illustrators for the church. And our most renowned sculptors also cast 
multiple bronze sculptures as well as totally utilitarian doors, gates, 
portrait busts, etc.. And the exceptions to your formulaic assessment go on 
and on and on through the history of "Fine Art" going all the way back to 
the cave illustrations and the Venus of Willendorf.

We can off our gratitude to the Fine Artists who make the Fine Art, using 
any and all media available to them, in every conceivable combination.

Even as the critics and curators attempt to categorize, pigeon hole and 
understand what they're looking at, reading, and listening to.

a note off the iPad, George

On Mar 23, 2015, at 9:32 AM, Larry Zeitlin via LUG <lug at leica-users.org> 
wrote:

>    Is photography art? I depends on whom you ask. I serve as an art critic 
> for several New York state regional newspapers and have plenty of 
> opportunity to visit art and photo shows. Artists, critics and show 
> curators have an implicit hierarchy of visual art roughly arranged in 
> inverse relationship to the utility of the effort. Fine art is art with no 
> apparent purpose except its own being. It is nice to look at but no one 
> NEEDS fine art. At the top of the list are the painters who work in oils, 
> next are the watercolorists followed by those who work in collage. Near 
> the bottom of the list are etchers, printmakers and photographers. Indeed 
> some curators refuse to let photographs be exhibited in art shows at all, 
> consigning them to the purdah of photo shows.
>    Lower on the list, in a separate category, are the applied arts. This 
> is "art" with some functional use. The work of most photographic 
> professionals, especially those whose pictures adorn magazines, 
> advertisements, newspapers, etc. fall into this category. Architects are 
> applied artists too, differentiated from sculptors because buildings have 
> a use apart from being merely decorative. Commercial artists are clearly 
> applied artists no matter how good their work. I know whereof I speak. I 
> live in Westchester near the border of Connecticuit and advertising and 
> commercial painters and photographers are as common as dust mites.
>    At the bottom of the list are craftsmen. Crafts are artistic creations 
> with a utilitarian purpose. It takes just as much skill to design a 
> Barcelona chair or fabricate a fine pair of shoes as it does to make a 
> painting except it is not considered "art." Most art venues will simply 
> not exhibit crafts except during the holiday season where they hope to 
> make a lot of sales.?
>    For the last 50 years I have had a grasshopper weathervane fastened to 
> the chimney of my house. It is a beautifully crafted sculpture of hammered 
> copper made by the descendants of the very craftsmen who made the similar 
> weathervane that adorns Faneuil Hall in Boston. If polished and exhibited 
> as art it would be accepted by almost any art show but as a weathervane it 
> has a function. It is not considered art but craft. I.e not acceptable as 
> "art."
>    The curse of photography (and etching and printmaking) is its 
> reproducibility. Copies of the work can be made virtually identical to the 
> original except not bearing the fingerprint of the artist. This caps the 
> appreciation value of the original. There is a financial virtue in 
> destroying the plates or negatives. While some photos can sell for a lot 
> of money, the highest price paid for a painting is 60 times the highest 
> price paid for a photograph. See Wikipedia for comparative pricing.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_paintings
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_photographs
>    Those of you that consider photographs fine art remember that amongst 
> artists it is considered a pretend art. A pseudo mechanical (OK digital) 
> process of capturiing an image. At best it is an applied art.
>    All of which reminds me of that old joke:?A young man buys himself a 
> boat and a Captain's hat. He says to his mother, "Now I'm a Captain."
>    His mother responds "You call yourself a Captain and I call you a 
> Captain. But do real Captains call you a Captain?"
>
>
>    Larry Z (a highly educated and reasonable photographer)
>
>
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